Bing hurting Google with search quality and Windows Phone 7?

Google is considered the top search engine in the world, and has held this title for some time since early development. When Microsoft had MSN (later as; Live) deployed as a competitor to Google (and Yahoo! at the time) no one really adapted to the giant’s offering – understandable since the results provided by the index were either slightly off, or just blatently ridiculous.

Requiring a new product (much like Windows Phone 7), Microsoft developed a search engine to create a stronger hold on the search share across the globe. Bing was born. Featuring a new User Interface and supposedly “better related” results, this was the secret weapon to attack Google’s fort.

With continued growth through the redirection of MSN/Live searchers to the new home of Microsoft search, and the acquisition of Yahoo! has had Bing in the spotlight for not only the Search Engine Optimisation world, but for those technologically banded. Not all could remain well for the two competitors however...

Within the last fall, Google CEO Eric Schmidt admitted, "our biggest competitor is Bing". Something that was mixed into the pool of heat that Google has been taking due to the increasing amount of spam results from searches. A fantastic article from Search Engine Land displays a quality search test between Bing and Google for some informational and transactional searches – results from the test showed Bing coming out on top for points.

Turning over to Hitwise for percentage of usage within the past two months, there is a clear understanding from the data provided (10 million US Internet users) that Bing is certainly taking a big step up in percentage of searches with a pleasant 5% increase between November and December last year, coupled with a 2% increase with Bing-powered search (websites that have Bing search integrated).

What’s interesting to note from this finding is the huge jump on the main search, could the sheer number of searches cause this from Windows Phone 7 devices? I believe it to be a strong possibility; especially since Android has an obvious huge Google integration, as select people migrate from Android to WP7 Bing will be the new platform used. Not only this, but if a Blackberry owner – who has Google as default search on his desktop – switches to WP7 and enjoys the experience provided by Bing on his device then there is a strong possibility of switching desktop search to Bing. I have personally performed the move from Google to Bing entirely.

It’s hard to predict what the future will hold for the search engine competition due to the amount of Android phones being activated compared to WP7, but it’s a promising sign that Bing seems to be picking up, especially since I find it to provide much more related searches to my keywords entered than Google. The table below shows the success rate between November and December last year that proves to be an insightful example on Bing’s quality.

What search engine do you use majority of the time, and why? Have you used Bing more since WP7?

Bing hurting Google with search quality and Windows Phone 7?

I still use Google for mail, calendar, reader... Hotmail just doesn't feel as good as Gmail, I've never seen a Windows Live Calendar or anything like that, and I know there's know Windows Live Reader. I've tried to start using Bing for search and maps. In Canada, however, Bing Maps is extremely poor - so the WP7 maps experience is pretty bad here too. Search is decent though.

I switched to Bing exclusively about 6 months ago. It was tough, not because the search results were worse, but because of my muscle memory. Typing g-o-o-g-l-e CRTL+ENTER was ingrained. Knowing my own difficulting breaking the Google habit, I'm impressed that Bing has any marketshare.As far as WP7, I love mine but I don't get the feeling that adoption is happening fast enough to impact the search results in a meaninful way.

Verizon has an agreement with ms to provide bing and as such many Android phones have the bing search app and do not have the google search app. The uptick is probably not from WP7 phones, rather from Android phones..

I have tried to Bing for a while, but still the search results are a bit off. Not all the time, but some of the time. Even when searching for Microsoft related stuff. It annoys me, that everytime I use Bing, I have to think "would Google do better?". I guess it must be a question of time before the Bing results becomes as good as Google. I assume the Bing engine some how "learns" from the results.Currently I use Google, but its more of a habit. Typing Google into my browser just "sits there".

What will hurt Google most is not offering native Google apps on WP7 (and leaving third party ISVs to try to fill in the gaps with "Google-like" products). Please Google, where is Google Maps, GMail, etc. for WP7? I would much rather use Google-written applications than Bing and other Microsoft tools.I understand that Google is trying to get folks on their Android platform and therefore may not want to provide applications for a competing platform. But, if it's all about the numbers, Google needs to admit that there is a WP7 market and get applications on it!

Bing is taking Google's marketshare, because our search needs have change, we need it to be more efficient, and more exact. We don't time to go through allot of results. Sometimes you just get sick of trying twenty combinations to find out something. I just started using Bing more often, the main reason is because of Google's update. I found in my experience, It sometimes doesn't load anything. It's like it was confused, and forces you to go back to the homescreen to start a new search. Why I didn't use Bing for awhile, was I had problems with it loading. But I found it was Internet Explorer that was the problem, it works great with Firefox and Chrome(isn't that ironic).

Bing brought me over way back when, when Google couldn't handle the search term C#. By the time Google wised up, it was too late. I've never used much else from Google, though I do tend to go to them for maps.I do wish pressing the Search button on my WP7 while in the browser would take me to Bing, and not Google. What's up with that?

Google is best for exact(technical) searches where as Bing is not. I prefer Bing, and have converted some of my Android/iPhone/WinMo friends. Bing Navigation is better(for me in NYC) than Google Navigation. Google kept having me taking really long ways in comparison to Bing.

I have to admit I tried to split them up equally between Safari,Google,and Bing each having there own strong points. But since I gave up my evil iPhone and bought my belovit WP7 It's been all BING all day everyday!

For most of my news or research searches, I do use Google mainly because I could filter by time period. I could search for things in the last month, week, or day.When I'm searching for information about products or shopping, I normally use Bing.

Seriously, Since I got my windows Phone 7, I am using bing much more often.But the truth is, for now, google is just better. I look for stuff and bing just dooesn't get me the results. I put them same keywords in google and it redirects me to the right pages.I think Bing could become great with time, but for now, it can't compete with google.